Brazil

2010

This week, CPJ published its year-end analysis of
work-related fatalities among journalists. Six of the 42 victims worked online.
While you can read the full statistics and our special report elsewhere, I want to highlight
the stories of these six journalists who worked on the Web.

At least 42 journalists are killed in 2010
as two trends emerge. Suicide attacks and violent street protests cause an
unusually high proportion of deaths. And online journalists are increasingly prominent
among the victims. A CPJ special report

On his blog, El Oso, David
Sasaki has just finished up the
third and last part in his series, "Internet Censorship
and Freedom of Expression in Latin America." It's a brilliant overview of current political and social pressures on free speech and online reporting in the region.

Some key observations:

Direct governmental censorship in Latin America
remains largely non-existent. Even occasional "murky,"
anecdotal evidence is mostly confined to Cuba and perhaps
Venezuela. Sasaki does a great job of collating what's been
rumored so far. The OpenNet Initiative has said
it will shortly publish updated research.

Litigation over content is the most widespread threat
to free expression online across the region. As CPJ has
reported for many years, criminal defamation laws and overbroad
judicial decisions affect independent journalism in many Latin
American countries. The large numbers of ongoing cases against
individual Net users and their hosting services show that this
risk has not diminished online.

Brazil and Chile are leading the way in attempts to create
Internet-era regulation, with broad participation. Other
countries could learn a lot from watching how this new body of
law develops, despite occasional missteps (or perhaps because of them).

The above will not surprise close watchers of the Latin American
Internet, and it certainly fits with CPJ's own observations there.
The real meat of this article, though, lies in the examples. From
decades old videos of famous censored
Argentine satire to a brief glimpse of the world of
Mexican botnets (a collection of hijacked computers used remotely by criminals), it's a compelling and informative read. Check
out
part one, an overview of the idea of Internet regulation;
part two, a survey of intermediary liability cases in the
region; and
part three, which offers a closer look at direct Net censorship in Latin
America, as well as brief glances at Net neutrality, privacy and
cybercrime.

November 2, 2010 3:12 PM ET

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New York, October 20, 2010--Brazilian police on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of killing radio reporter Francisco Gomes de Medeiros in the city of Caicó, state of Rio Grande do Norte, local press reports said. Gomes was shot to death Monday in front of his house. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the arrest and calls on Brazilian authorities to prosecute all those responsible to the full extent of the law.

New York, June 1, 2010--Israel should immediately release the journalists it detained along with hundreds of peace activists on Monday after Israeli forces stormed a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. According to international news reports and CPJ interviews, Israeli forces arrested at least 20 journalists aboard the humanitarian flotilla; three have since been released.

Last week, Google published its first
set of global government request statistics, showing how many
demands it receives to remove content from its servers or hand over private
information on its users. Transparency by Internet companies about how much
information they are compelled to remove or release helps us understand how
online journalism worldwide may be affected by state actions. Although Google
acknowledges its initial figures are "imperfect," they are an important first
step, not least because they might encourage other companies to provide the
same figures.

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In our special report, “Getting Away With Murder” CPJ names and shames countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments are unable or unwilling to solve the crimes. Here, María Salazar-Ferro explains CPJ's Impunity Index, detailing what nations are failing and which ones are showing improvement. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to download. (2:27)

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New York, March 30, 2010—The conviction on Saturday of four men, including three members of the military police, in the 2007 murder of Brazilian journalist Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho is an important step forward in the global campaign to combat impunity in journalists’ murders, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

In an encouraging development, three courts in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile have recently followed the growing regional consensus against criminal defamation by dismissing criminal penalties against journalists accused of libel and slander.

The newsweekly magazine Semana reported that a piece written by Alfredo Molano, at left, in the op-ed pages of the Bogota-based daily El Espectador in February 2007 described how the members of a family in Cartagena and Valledupar had undue influence in private businesses and public offices in the country’s Caribbean region.

In a major advance for press freedom, Brazil’s highest court struck down a repressive 1967 law that criminalized broad swaths of sensitive reporting and set harsh potential penalties. But defamation laws remained a concern as penal code provisions allowed prison penalties for libel and slander. And a flood of civil defamation cases continued unabated, in some cases leading lower courts to issue censorship orders that barred news media from covering public issues, including alleged corruption involving government officials and business people.